Land & Environment

Water operators need to be efficient, accountable, honest public institutions providing a universal service. Many water services however lack the institutional strength, the human resources, the technical expertise and equipment, or the financial or managerial capacity to provide these services.

Nowadays, politicians in Africa are generally more concerned with market efficiency, economic growth rates, productivity of financial capital and the security of the rich than they are about human rights and the security of the people.

On 29 July 2010, the General Assembly of the United Nations recognised, in a proposed resolution by Bolivia and adopted by 122 votes with 41 abstentions, ‘the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human righ

In the name of macroeconomic adjustment, the Bretton Woods institutions advocated shock therapy: reestablishment of internal and external stability through severe budgetary austerity, privatisation of public companies, price deregulation, currency devaluation, abandoning large infrastructure proj

While both North–South partnerships and South–South partnerships have strengths and limitations, linking these in networked models is an effective way to mobilise expertise and funding and achieve success.

Africa has long been synonymous as the poster child of the resource curse. Illicit financial flows, often siphoned through corruption and mis-pricing, are estimated to cost the continent $200-billion annually.

The water service in the Senegalese cities has been partially privatised since 1996 under the form of a lease contract between the state and the Sénégalaise des eaux (SDE). 51 per cent of the capital of the latter is held by SAUR, renamed FINAGETION in 2005.

The water issue is a major problem for people in sub-Saharan Africa. Indeed, the water situation in sub-Saharan Africa remains characterised by the difficult access to this resource, the poor supply management of watering places and the high costs of water network connections.

In a recent New York Times (NYT) opinion piece ‘Clean water at no cost?